Eulogizing people who have lived lives of public service is important work. In fact, I'd argue, it's one of the most important jobs a journalist does. It's never easy to call folks in the wake of another's death. Even if the person you're calling and the person who died aren't particularly close, it's a bit awkward. But often, those willing to talk to you have amazing stories to tell. And, I think, the process can be a catharsis for them. On Sunday afternoon, I called four Brown County residents to visit with them about what they most remembered and respected about George McGovern, a longtime U.S. senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic candidate for president who died earlier in the day. I wound up with more great anecdotes and tales than I could use in the story I wrote for the Monday paper.

Today's question: How should South Dakotans remember the life and career of George McGovern? I would like for South Dakota to declare Thursday George McGovern Day by asking people to bring a can of food, which would be distributed to the food pantries within the city. Other cities could do likewise. This could become a yearly event to keep his memory alive. Sister Madonna Pierret Aberdeen George McGovern was a man that loved the people of South Dakota and worked hard to help all the people of the state.

MITCHELL, S.D. - George McGovern has something in common with Mark Twain: Reports of their death were unfounded. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, referred to the "late George McGovern" in a Wednesday column. He realized his error after the Tribune went to press and was further alerted to McGovern's good health in an e-mailed letter from a reader. "It was my screw-up," Kass said in a telephone interview with The Daily Republic. "I totally blew it. " Kass called McGovern to apologize and said the former South Dakota congressman and senator was "very gracious" in accepting his apology.

The second in a series of interviews with George McGovern will be Sept. 29 in Rapid City. The South Dakota Democratic Party is sponsoring The McGovern Interview Series. In the second part, McGovern will discuss 1962 to 1980. He spent the bulk of that time in the U.S. Senate, and was the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. Tickets are $35. To get them, call the South Dakota Democratic Party at (605) 271-5405. The interview will begin at 7 p.m. at the Dakota Middle School Auditorium.

George McGovern was a courageous pilot and a lifelong public servant who accomplished much good in his life. Tom Daschle's statement at his memorial service that McGovern was "the most effective preacher of the Gospel he had ever met," however, convinces me that Mr. Daschle needs to expand either his circle of acquaintances or his understanding of the Gospel. The essence of the Gospel is that human life, created in God's image and redeemed by Christ's blood, is sacred, and is destined for ultimate union with God. For that reason, the fact that 53 million of our children have been thrown on the trash-heap, through the scandal of abortion, borders on the blasphemous.

PIERRE - Handed a precious opportunity, 86-year-old George McGovern has made the most of it. His new biography of Abraham Lincoln, published by Times Books as part of The American Presidents series, demands to be read as much for its author as for its subject. McGovern provides an intelligent and provocative analysis of Lincoln's character. Most interestingly, he defends Lincoln's abuses of the U.S. Constitution during the Civil War. McGovern said it's ?understandable? Lincoln would suspend or ignore certain basic rights, which led to the arrests of thousands of people and the censorship of some newspapers, in order to save the Union against southern secession and, by extension, preserve that very same constitution.

Most South Dakotans agree with the late Mother Teresa, who said, "It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. " Unfortunately, more than 95 percent of the abortions done in the United States are done so that some may live as they wish. So sad. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin tries to convince us she is in step with South Dakotans. She uses a few very isolated examples to mask the fact that she votes with liberal Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi 90 percent of the time.

1891: New York's Carnegie Hall (then named "Music Hall") had its official opening night. 1925: Schoolteacher John T. Scopes was charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution. (Scopes was found guilty, but his conviction was later set aside.) 1961: Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7, a Mercury capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. 1961: President John F. Kennedy signed a law raising the minimum wage to $1.15 an hour, then to $1.25 an hour, for currently covered workers.

MITCHELL - Former presidential candidate George McGovern says he has no problem working in The Watergate, though he joked recently that he hopes no one breaks into his office there. The longtime former U.S. senator from South Dakota is a senior policy adviser for a law firm that this week moved its offices to The Watergate office-apartment-hotel complex. McGovern was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, the year that burglars under the control of President Richard Nixon's administration were caught entering the Democratic National Committee headquarters on the sixth floor of The Watergate hotel.

Former South Dakota Democratic Senator George McGovern, who died Sunday, had all manner of evil said about him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was called unpatriotic, disloyal, an appeaser and an enabler of communism. Those were the printable slanders. Many conservatives at the time believed in the "domino theory," that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all Asia would follow. That proved untrue. McGovern was eventually vindicated in many minds about America's involvement in Vietnam.

It's a good final memory of George McGovern, and I am grateful for it now, a year after his death. I was covering a Public Utilities Commission candidates' debate at the 2012 South Dakota State Fair and McGovern was in the front row of the small crowd. We were gathered under a tent on a typically blazingly hot day at the fair. McGovern, a two-term congressman, three-term senator and the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, was there to cheer on his grandson, Matt McGovern.

PIERRE - Today marks one year since the death of Bill Janklow from inoperable brain cancer. His four terms and 16 years in the office made him South Dakota's longest-serving governor. Eventually two portraits of Janklow - one for his 1979-86 terms and the other for his 1995-2002 terms - will be added to the display of paintings of former chief executives for Dakota Territory and South Dakota in the first-floor hallway of the state Capitol. Janklow, who was 73 when he died, was one of four giants of South Dakota politics to die in 2012.

I am responding to a recent letter in the Aberdeen American News (Nov. 7) suggesting George McGovern facilitated a "culture of death. " The writer suggests Sen. McGovern was a pawn of "the radical feminist influence" on the Democratic Party. I think reflection on his character will demonstrate he was his "own man" on many problems - beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War. The recent national election indicates a majority of American women feel control of their bodies should not be determined by either legislative or religious mandates.

George McGovern was a courageous pilot and a lifelong public servant who accomplished much good in his life. Tom Daschle's statement at his memorial service that McGovern was "the most effective preacher of the Gospel he had ever met," however, convinces me that Mr. Daschle needs to expand either his circle of acquaintances or his understanding of the Gospel. The essence of the Gospel is that human life, created in God's image and redeemed by Christ's blood, is sacred, and is destined for ultimate union with God. For that reason, the fact that 53 million of our children have been thrown on the trash-heap, through the scandal of abortion, borders on the blasphemous.

One guy was among the greatest losers in the history of politics, the other, one of the biggest winners in all of sports. They were unalike men who shared little except recent headlines. But there was, in that brief juxtaposition, an object lesson for those who cared to see it. The loser - George McGovern - made headlines by dying at age 90. He is famous for having been on the rump end of one of the most thorough election shellackings in history, cobbling together a measly 17 electoral votes in 1972 to Richard Nixon's 520. But there was more to him than that epic loss.

Eulogizing people who have lived lives of public service is important work. In fact, I'd argue, it's one of the most important jobs a journalist does. It's never easy to call folks in the wake of another's death. Even if the person you're calling and the person who died aren't particularly close, it's a bit awkward. But often, those willing to talk to you have amazing stories to tell. And, I think, the process can be a catharsis for them. On Sunday afternoon, I called four Brown County residents to visit with them about what they most remembered and respected about George McGovern, a longtime U.S. senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic candidate for president who died earlier in the day. I wound up with more great anecdotes and tales than I could use in the story I wrote for the Monday paper.

Today's question: How should South Dakotans remember the life and career of George McGovern? I would like for South Dakota to declare Thursday George McGovern Day by asking people to bring a can of food, which would be distributed to the food pantries within the city. Other cities could do likewise. This could become a yearly event to keep his memory alive. Sister Madonna Pierret Aberdeen George McGovern was a man that loved the people of South Dakota and worked hard to help all the people of the state.

As a young and idealistic freshman in college, I was looking for ways to get involved on campus. The year was 1980, and a presidential election was in full swing. This would be my first ever opportunity to vote in a presidential election. Also that year, Sen. George McGovern was up for re-election to the U.S. Senate. I volunteered to work with McGovern's campaign. This was my first introduction to McGovern and his remarkable career of outstanding service to South Dakota and the nation.

Former South Dakota Democratic Senator George McGovern, who died Sunday, had all manner of evil said about him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was called unpatriotic, disloyal, an appeaser and an enabler of communism. Those were the printable slanders. Many conservatives at the time believed in the "domino theory," that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all Asia would follow. That proved untrue. McGovern was eventually vindicated in many minds about America's involvement in Vietnam.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - George McGovern was an unwavering, often unrequited advocate for liberal Democratic causes. He pursued those goals in plainspoken, usually understated, Midwestern style. He was a dedicated, decent man, a devoted Democrat even when the party establishment turned away from him in defeat. He wasn't good at political gamesmanship. He suffered his worst blunders when he strayed from straight talk in his doomed 1972 presidential campaign. It didn't fit the man and it shook the credibility he treasured. McGovern was a partisan without the poison that increasingly infected American politics.